Age on a CV

You don’t need to put your age on a CV and recruiters and employers are not allowed to directly ask you how old you are.

It would be naive to think that your age doesn’t make a difference as many recruiters are under 30 and to them anyone over the age of 50 is not a good candidate.

But how do you avoid showing your age?

1. Don’t put your date of birth on.

Obvious but we still had to say it!

2. Only show the last 15-20 years of employment history on your CV.

You don’t have to show your entire life history in a CV and if the last 15-20 years doesn’t include any relevant experience then you probably shouldn’t be applying for the job in the first place!

3. If your email address was generated by your email provider it may well have your year of birth in it, e.g. davidsmith52@blahblah.com

Get yourself a new email address specifically for job applications from Gmail or Yahoo.

4. Take out the years for your training and education.

Training is training, no matter when you did it and the same applies for education. There are exceptions to this but with many time related certifications the re-application process is pretty basic and employers won’t hesitate to get you through it if they think you’re the right person.

5. Take a careful look at your interests and hobbies…

If you put down that “spending time with my grand children” is an interest then you are giving away your age.

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll get past the age barrier and get the interview.